Disposable pipette tips and trays for carrying them are widely used in clinical laboratories and the like, and are also widely described in the patent literature, including Scordato et al. U.S. Patent Nos. 3,853,217 and 4,349,109, for example.
Disposable pipette tips are typically provided to the user in a large package, in which the pipette tips, which are typically very small, are held in an array with the respective larger open ends of the pipette tips all being disposed approximately in a single plane, to permit engagement by a multi-tip pipettor to engage and pick up a linear plurality of the pipette tips and to transfer them to the respective sample wells of a multiple-well sample tray. There, they are used to pick up and/or dispense liquids to help constitute whatever assay or diagnostic procedure may be taking place in each sample well of the multiple-well sample tray.
All of the above technology is widely commercially available, with various designs of apparatus being available for accomplishing the pipette tip transfer to their sites of use for purposes of facilitating typical diagnostic assays or determinations.
There are commercially available multi-tip pipettors apparatus for picking up a linear array of pipette tips and transferring them to their desired sites of use. However, the individual spacing between pipette tips in their storage package must be specific and predetermined in order for a given commercially available multi-tip pipettor apparatus to properly engage the pipette tips and to subsequently transfer them at their site of use.
Accordingly, in the prior art, a specific pipette tip storage tray generally must be used with a specific model of multi-tip pipettor. Thus, operations in a laboratory can be greatly hampered if it turns out that the wrong type of storage tray is present, if that tray is incompatible with the particular multi-tip pipettors used in that laboratory. Thus, laboratory personnel must order different models of pipette tip storage trays to accommodate different models of multitip pipettors which are currently in use. This requires a more complex ordering program, with increased space and attention to the inventory of such different pipette tip storage trays.
In accordance with this invention, a pipette tip storage tray is provided, and a method for using it, in which different models of multi-tip pipettors, adapted for use with differently spaced rows of pipette tips, may be supplied by a single pipette tip storage tray. Thus, the ordering and inventory process of laboratories may be significantly simplified, since different models of multi-tip pipettors may be used to engage pipette tips and to transfer them to their position of use from the same tray. However, this may be accomplished at essentially no increase in cost, and with great simplicity of structure.